Hope's Origin
by lilbluedancer
Summary: His mother says, give them hope. Scott puts his pack back together one member at a time.


When Scott is sixteen his mother tells him that he will have more than one love in his lifetime. There's an aching Allison-sized hole in his heart and claws digging into his palms, and his mother says, _be your own anchor_.

Anchors keep you from floating away but they can also pull you under, and oh, how badly Scott McCall wants to drown in the ghost of Allison Argent's love.

 _Be your own anchor, Scott_ , she says, and his claws retract.

He doesn't like the idea -more than one love- because it feels like he's dishonoring Allison, by saying what they had is only the first of many.

Scott can believe he will love again, but not like that. Pure and open, untainted by fear or uncertainty. He will never love anyone the way he loved Allison.

Scott's mostly okay with that. It doesn't mean he doesn't love. He just loves differently, now.

 _One_. Kira

He calls her after his mom has tucked him into bed like a little kid, kissed his forehead and left a glass of water for him on the nightstand.

"Scott?" Kira's voice is high and clear on the other side of the line. "Are you okay?"

He has to swallow something thick in the back of his throat, a stutter-cough before he rasps back, "Hey."

"What's wrong?" She sounds worried. "Was it the moon? Did something happen?"

"It...it was Theo," he says, fingers clutching the edge of the blankets.

"What?"

"Theo, he...he... Stiles tried to tell me but I..."

"Scott," she whispers, "are you okay?"

He takes a deep breath and burrows deeper under the covers, phone pressed to his ear.

"No," he sighs, and it feels like a relief, to just be honest, to admit he's lost. "I'm not okay."

"I guess things haven't been been okay for awhile," she says quietly. "Since senior scribe."

"Yeah," he agrees.

"Do you remember," she says, "when we first met? What I told you?"

"Told me what?"

"Wolves and foxes...they're not supposed to get along."

There's a distant sniff and he realizes she's crying into the phone.

"Kira-"

"I'm sorry, Scott."

"You don't have anything to apologize for."

"I love you." She's weeping, trying to be quiet so he doesn't hear, and he thinks about the new girl in the back of the classroom, the girl who just wanted someone to be her friend.

"Kira," he says again, more firm this time. "Just come home, okay?"

There's a pause and then she whispers softly, "yeah, okay."

"Hey."

Another sniff. "Yeah?"

"I love you, too."

 _Two_. Stiles.

Stiles answers the door in the morning looking like death warmed over, ghost-pale skin and blue half moons under his eyes.

"Go away," he scowls, and moves to slam the door but Scott sticks his foot in the doorway before Stiles can get it shut.

"You were right," he blurts out. "About Theo. He wanted in the pack so he could break it up. He put wolfsbane in my inhaler. He got Liam to kill me for him."

Stiles gives him a once over. "You don't look dead to me."

Scott shrugs. "My mom is _really_ good at CPR."

"What do you want, Scott?"

" _Stiles_." Something like shame burns hot in Scott's chest and he finds he can't look his best friend in the eye. "I screwed up, man. I screwed up really bad, and I'm sorry. I should have listened to you."

"Yeah, you should have," Stiles snaps. "I'm your best fucking friend dude, and you wouldn't believe me, you believed him over me."

"I made a mistake. That's on me, I get that. Stiles please, I don't want to fight anymore. That's what he wants. We can't let him come between us."

Stiles stares down at his shoes. "I thought he already did."

"What? Dude, _no_. We can still fix this. Kira's coming back. We'll get Liam and Lydia and we'll figure something out, okay? We're still pack, Stiles. Nothing's gonna change that. I don't care about Donovan, okay? You did what you had to do, I get that now. I'm sorry I didn't before."

"Scott." Stiles' eyes fill with tears and Scott wonders why he didn't smell all that fear the moment Stiles opened the door. "Lydia won't call me back."

 _Three_. Lydia

Lydia lays flat on her back like a coma patient, eyes wide and unseeing, her hands cuffed to the bed in soft restraints.

"Oh god," Stiles chokes out when he sees her, and stumbles back behind Scott. "Oh god Scott, I can't, I can't-"

Scott hears pounding footsteps and the slam of the bathroom door opening down the hall of Eichen house, Stiles throwing up bile.

He's torn-Lydia or Stiles-but she's lying there and it's his fault _it's all his fault_.

Scott sinks down on the little metal chair beside her bed and watches Lydia's eyes track something invisible across the ceiling.

He slips his hand into hers and her fingers curl over his like an automatic reflex. His breath catches in his chest but when he looks at her face it's expressionless, fingers apparently moving independent of her mind.

"God Lydia," he whispers. "What did he do to you?"

Lydia lets out an almost imperceptible whimper and her fingers tighten around his.

"It's okay," he whispers. "We're here, Lydia."

There's the _pound pound_ of her heart, much faster than normal, like Stiles when he's had too much Adderall. She smells like fear and dirt and something sour that he can't place.

Scott rubs his thumb over the back of her hand and her heart rate drops a bit.

She still smells like fear.

"Hey Lydia," he whispers, "I'm gonna try something, okay?"

He pulls his hand out of hers and her pulse skyrockets, the smell of fear spiraling into panic.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." He slips his hand under her neck to cup the back of her head and her heartbeat peaks before dropping to a steadier rate.

"I don't know if you can hear me," he says, "but I know you can feel me. I know you're in there, Lydia."

He lifts her head up carefully to reveal four crescent moon scars on the back of her neck. Scott brings his claws out and lines them up with the marks Theo left.

"Don't be mad, okay?" he pleads softly. "If I screw this up you can totally kill me later. Although to be honest with you I'm getting really sick of dying."

He pushes his claws into the back of her neck.

He's at the nemeton, the smell of fear and-is that smoke?-thick in his nostrils and it's so dark, he can't see, just feels Lydia's panic.

"Let's go somewhere else," he says out loud, hoping Lydia can hear him. He's in her head after all. "Come on Lydia. You don't have to be here. Let's go somewhere else."

He starts to walk, pushing through trees, and then suddenly he's in her backyard, out by the pool.

Scott hears a bark and he tenses, the feel of a dog leash heavy in his hand, but when he turns around it's Prada, nipping happily at the ankles of a small girl with strawberry blond braids.

"Yes," he whispers. "Come on Lydia. I know you're here. Let's go somewhere happy, okay? Show me something happy."

The backyard dissolves and he's walking down the hallways at school, the most familiar laugh in his ear-

 _Allison_. Allison and Lydia, walking arm in arm, laughing.

 _Yes_. It's working, it has to be working. The girls pass right through him and Scott follows them out the school doors to the-

Lacrosse field. Stiles scores a goal and Lydia is screaming, jumping up and down, her eyes bright-

A chemistry test with a bright red A+ scrawled in the corner-

Lydia dancing back to back with Kira, music pounding in Scott's head-

"It's working!" Scott shouts excitedly. "You're doing it Lydia, come on, you've got this-"

And then it's all Stiles, snapshots that jump around out of order like a tangled roll of film.

Stiles leaning in her car window, saying, _because I think you look really beautiful when you cry_ -

Stiles nibbling on a pen-

Stiles dragging her onto the dance floor-

Stiles offering her a peanut butter cup-

Stiles yelling, _if you die I'll go out of my freaking mind_!-

Lydia kissing Stiles on the floor of the locker room-

His eyes open at her gasp, claws retreating automatically. "Lydia?"

Tears are pouring down her face but she's smiling, her eyes very firmly fixed on his.

"Stiles?" she croaks.

"He's here, hang on, he's right here."

Stiles is leaning against the wall right outside her room, his head snapping up when Scott comes out.

"Come on, dude. She's asking for you."

Stiles stumbles into her room like a blind man.

Her fingers are outstretched, head turned towards them, face wet with tears. " _Stiles._ "

He takes a step towards her and crumples, his head falling on the pillow next to hers, body curled protectively over her.

"I'm sorry," Stiles sobs. "Oh god Lydia, so fucking sorry."

Scott steps quietly out of the room and listens to his friends cry in each other's arms.

"She can't stay there," Stiles says later, when they're pulling up in front of his house. "It's not safe."

"I know." Scott's hands twist in his lap. "Maybe your dad can call her mom? Explain? She'd listen to him, right?"

"Yeah." Scott hasn't asked Stiles why they're driving his dad's car and not the jeep, and Stiles hasn't offered.

"Hey man," Scott says, reaching out to grip Stiles' forearm. "You know that Lydia's in love with you, right?"

Stiles' eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "Did she tell you that?"

"Not exactly."

"Yeah, okay, whatever," Stiles mutters.

Scott grins. "How come you never told me Lydia kissed you?"

The look on Stiles' face is priceless.

 _Four_. Liam.

He finds Liam sitting on the bench by the lacrosse field.

"Hey," Scott says quietly. "Okay if I sit with you?"

Liam shrugs so Scott sits, remembering how after Allison everything hurt, like he was dead too.

"I'm sorry about Hayden."

Liam looks out over the field. "Sorry I killed you."

"It's okay."

Liam looks at Scott in surprise, and Scott gives him a tentative smile.

"Stiles and I got Derek arrested for murder once," he says. "You're part of a long tradition of betas turning on their alphas."

"I thought Peter was your alpha?"

"Peter bit me," Scott corrects gently. "But Derek...everything I know about being an alpha I learned from him."

"Well, that explains it," Liam says, without a trace of irony in his voice.

"Liam-"

"No, I didn't mean it like that." Liam shrugs uncomfortably. "You...I don't always agree with you and sometimes I feel like I'm basically just a giant pain in your ass but I know that you..." The younger boy swallows thickly. "I know you do everything you can to help me. Like Derek. That's all I meant."

Scott sighs and places a tentative hand on Liam's shoulder, surprised when he doesn't shrug it off. "You're not a pain in the ass."

Liam snorts and Scott grins. "Okay, not all the time."

Liam nods and lets out a shuddery sigh. "Scott, Hayden, she...she hated me."

Scott's hand tightens on Liam's shoulder. "No, she didn't."

"She did, Scott. And then I got...I got her...she died because of me."

"Hey." Scott puts pressure on Liam's shoulder, forcing him to turn to look at him. "Theo got Hayden killed. Not you."

Liam's eyes get glassy and he rubs at them. "When I found you in the library...I was supposed to be looking for her sister. She didn't want to die without her sister..."

"It's not your fault, Liam."

"Then why do I feel like it is?"

Scott thinks about Derek and Paige, him and Allison, Hayden's pale face, silver poison in her veins.

"I know it doesn't feel this way now," Scott says, working hard to keep his voice steady. "But it won't always hurt like this. One day you'll wake up and you'll be able to breathe again. One day you'll met a girl and she'll smile at you, and you won't feel guilty when you smile back. Maybe she'll be pretty like Hayden or good at soccer, and even if you want to you won't feel bad about it, because you know that Hayden would want you to be happy."

Liam's crying, his head cradled in clenched fists. "How do you know?"

"Because Hayden loved you. And to say that she didn't would be dishonoring her memory."

Scott smells iron and salt and when he looks down blood is trailing down Liam's wrists. Scott unfurls Liam's fingers, watching the cuts on his palms close up.

"Come on," Scott says, pulling Liam off the bench and tossing him his lacrosse stick. "Up for some one-on-one?"

Liam shakes his head. "Dude. I'll crush you."

Scott laughs. "I'm okay with that. As long as you'll play with me."

Liam leans into him. "Yeah man. I'll play with you."

 _Five_. Allison.

Everything is white. Scott breathes shallowly, spinning around, trying to orient himself. He was in the library, fighting Liam-

"Liam!" Scott spins but there's nothing but white white white, and then suddenly a swirl of brown.

"Hi Scott."

Allison Argent, in a leather jacket and skinny jeans tucked into her boots, standing right in front of him.

" _Allison_?"

She smiles at him and it's so sweet, so real, and Scott knows, he knows what this means.

"I'm dead," he assesses slowly. "Liam killed me."

Allison's still smiling. "Not exactly."

"Allison, where are we?"

"Come on Scott." A dimple appears in her cheek, is she teasing him? "You know where we were are."

White, white everywhere and Scott thinks of a snowy forest, the reflection of a desk shining off a sword.

"Bardo."

Allison slips her hand into his. "It's really nice to see you."

"Allison, what's going on? Why are we here?"

A bench suddenly appears in all the white and she pulls him down to sit.

"I'm just visiting," she says. "You're not supposed to be here."

"But...I'm dead."

"No, Scott." Allison cups his cheek and suddenly he's fifteen again, loaning his pen to the new girl with dark curls and steel in her spine. "You're not."

"But Liam, he-"

"Scott, listen to me. You have to go back, okay?"

"How can I go back? I'm dead, I'm-"

"No, Scott, you're not. You can still go back, you have to go back."

"But-you're here. Allison, how are you here-"

"I'm not," she says impatiently. "I told you, I'm just visiting."

"But Allison-"

"You're not listening to me!" Allison's fingernails dig into his cheeks. "You have to go back, okay? They need you, Scott. Your pack needs you. He has Lydia, you have to find Lydia okay?"

"Allison-"

" _Scott_!" The voice is far away, and yet it's so familiar. " _Scott, come back_!"

Scott doesn't want to come back, he wants to sit on a bench with Allison Argent, but the voice is getting louder and Allison looks panicked.

"You have to go now, Scott, okay?"

"I don't want to leave you," he says frantically, his hands finding her wrists and gripping hard.

She gives him a sad smile. "I'm already gone."

Allison leans in and kisses him. Cold, down his spine, all the way to his toes and he can't let go of her, he doesn't want to let go-

"It's okay, Scott," she whispers. "Close your eyes."

"Allison-"

"Shh." Cool fingertips on his eyelids and she wipes away burning tears.

"Allison, I love you."

" _Come on Scott! Come on!_ "

Dark behind his eyelids, Allison's cold breath in his ear. "It's okay Scott. I think we both know I loved you too."

When he opens his eyes the face looking back at him is his mother's.

 _Six_. Melissa.

His mother says, give them hope.

Scott wants to ask how, he wants to argue, but then he looks into his mother's eyes and suddenly he knows. Because if anyone has always found a way to be his hope, it's his mother.

His mother has hope because she loves him, and that's all there is to it.

Scott loves his pack, fiercely. They may be lost, broken, fractured, scared, and worried, but still. Somehow he knows it's going to be okay.

Because maybe that's where hope starts. With love.


End file.
